Prof. Sharp's book is a revealing look into social and political aspects of rural life in the vast forsts of Tudor-Stuart England. Caught between the ambitions of the crown and landlords for the exploitation of the land, and the necessities of their hard, marginal existences, poor woodworkers, clothworkers, and other rural artisans resort to rioting and civil disobedience in order to assert their traditional way of living. Prof. Sharp, in a remarkable piece of social history, tracks down and documents the lives of these people and their conception of the 'moral economy.' In the latter half of the book, Prof. Sharp paints a painstaking portrait of the aspects of demography and politics that most affected the forest-dwellers, using the artisans of the Dean Forest as his primary examples. This is one of the most revealing studies of rural peasant life and conditions that can be found for the period, and a true joy to read, due to Prof. Sharp's fine, strong, and pleasant prose. One cannot but be impressed by this fascinating work of scholarship.